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Funny if you read Briggs, he describes how in 1925 none other than David Sarnoff visited John Reith the Managing Director of the British Broadcasting Company to study the funding model. You see in those days, it was thought crass to have selling on the airwaves.
The tide changed when RCA acquired the AT&T station WEAF in 1926 when NBC began. Then William Paley stepped into the picture and US broadcasting was forever changed.
As a crown corporation, the BBC maintained government independence, followed capitalist principles and yet secured a funding model which to this day eliminated crass and annoying on air advertising. It is a matter of culture, not socialism vs capitalism.
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